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Proof-of-Concept Design
Scoping a POC narrowly enough to prove the riskiest assumption, without building a miniature version of the whole system.
What it is
A proof of concept validates the riskiest assumption in a proposed architecture — cheaply and quickly — before committing to a full build. Scoping it well is the actual skill; a POC that tries to prove everything proves nothing efficiently.
Key points
- Identify the riskiest assumption first: a POC should target the one thing most likely to be wrong or most expensive to discover late — not just demo the easy, already-proven parts of the system.
- Timeboxing: a POC has a fixed, short duration by design — the goal is a fast answer to a specific question, not a production-quality build.
- Success criteria defined up front: what specifically would prove or disprove the assumption needs to be agreed before starting, or a POC's results become ambiguous and get argued over afterward.
- POCs are explicitly disposable — code quality and completeness are secondary to answering the question quickly, which is a genuinely different mode than product engineering.